Sculptor's Gambit
by Ardent Aspen
Summary: The War was over and Cybertron had been restored...but that didn't mean that everything was perfect. No, perfect was for Iacon. When a shadowy mech with a grudge started leaving murdered Decepticons around town, a rookie Enforcer found himself in over his head faster than he expected. There's a reason mechs don't go out after dark in Slaughter City.
1. Chapter 1

**This is just a one or two-shot, an experiment in a writing style I've never used before. **

**Let's hope it's not a disaster, eh?**

**The voice and characterization of the speaker was based on the way he talked in the book "Transformers: Retribution". **

* * *

_Personal Files: Message 42.3_

To make everything worse, it was raining.

That's a rotten way to start a story, I know, but I've never been much of an orator—never you mind what they all say about me up north.

I made my way downtown to where the call was coming in from, taking the speedways to avoid the traffic. It's not for the faint of spark: nobody's tended to the upkeep of that stretch of death since the Quintesson days. Nobody cared about it during the Golden Age, and it was just another battleground during the War. There are holes in the road big enough to drop a Predacon through, not to mention the damaged supports, the leaking cleaner fluid rusting the girders, and—oh yes, let's not forget my favorite—the discarded missile shells every few yards. Most of them are deactivated.

Most of them.

It's funny, in a way, seeing all the old familiar places like this. I used to be a go-between for the Elite Guard and the town militias in the good old days. Well, "good" is a little bit of a stretch where Sentinel Zeta is concerned. Guy had a helm like a rock and a spark like a bonfire, 'til you brought up the lower castes and the crime rate in the outer city-states. Then that bonfire turned into ice, pure and simple, and the 'bot got _mean_.

Of course, I can get pretty mean too. I hear they're still using my designation as some nebulous, undefined punishment in the Law Enforcement Academy up north. The more things change, right?

After the War, once Cybertron woke up and started _living _again, I sort of thought maybe the peace was going to last awhile. Like maybe the race as a whole would think, "Gee, haven't we nearly driven ourselves to extinction already? Let's leave off with the fighting and the killing for a mega-cycle or two!" Shows how much I know, right? Maybe that's what happens when you're stuck in space, wandering around with a perpetual optimist for _decades_. You go _soft_, naïve, thinking the best of every mech you meet until he tries to kill you.

They're like that up in Iacon, especially now that they've got a _youngling _running the show. Oh, don't get me wrong now, he's a good soldier, a good friend. But he's no Prime. In some ways, he's the best thing that's ever happened to this broken-down world: a kid who's just about as far from the upper castes' idea of a leader as you could imagine, picking up the pieces where Optimus Prime left off just because nobody else could.

Then again, that's a pretty sad statement on our political and legal system post-war: we had to have a scout-graduate running the planet because we couldn't get our act together.

But that's neither here nor there. See? I told you I was bad at telling stories.

I was on that decrepit speedway headed for a section of town we just called "The Pens". Once upon a time, that was where they kept the gladiators they used to throw into the rings here: dirty, narrow habitation units just big enough to hold a mech on his way to a messy execution. Now they're slums.

This is Slaughter City, where the bad die young and the good die younger.

The War hasn't done it any favors.

Slaughter City is a festering wound, a stain on the wall that Iacon hangs a painting over and pretends doesn't exist. With the militia spread as thin as it is, there are mechs and femmes who are literally getting away with murder around here. That's why I was headed for "The Pens".

You didn't think we got the name by accident, did you?

Ambulon, the local medic, and one of my rookies were already there when I arrived. The rookie wasn't a bad officer; he had an optic for the little details most Cybertronians overlook, and it was easier to get a bone away from a Sharkticon than it was to distract him once he went to work on a case. He had a processor like a laser beam: completely focused. That's what I needed in a place like The Pens: focus.

"What's the 10-45, Nightbeat?" I asked, transforming.

Even the atmosphere felt corrupting. The feel of the place dripped down the walls like the slime leaking out of the vents at old Ventox's place again. Which reminds me: I need to write him up for health code violation again.

"It's a 187, Prowl," he said. His Kalis accent used to grate on the audials. I'm used to it now.

"Homicide, huh?" I asked, stepping over the laser lines, "Who's our victim?"

Whoever the unlucky mech was, he had the familiar purple and silver badge of a Decepticon, possibly a Seeker Elite, with scarring to match. He didn't have the frame of one of the anonymous drones, which meant he must've taken a name for himself at some point. It would've been easier to identify him if his head had still been attached. I crouched and ran a few scans over him. It wasn't a pretty sight.

Every servo on his hands was crushed, like somebody'd been standing on them. There were lacerations on his forearms and most of his armor: this guy had put up a fight. Made me wonder why no one had called in an assault _before _the mech got killed. Like I said before, his head was completely gone, and his wings...well, let's just say that even if he'd survived, he probably wouldn't have been flying anytime soon. Which meant that whoever had done this was either really big, or proportionately strong.

"Database doesn't have any records on him, surprise surprise," Nightbeat hadn't been down in Slaughter City more than a few Earth-months, and he was already picking up the natural cynicism this town bleeds.

"Alright, call him in as a John Doe."

"A what now?"

"Earth term for an unidentified corpse. Add it to the memory banks, will you? Human words are in vogue right now, in case you hadn't noticed."

Personally, I blamed Bumblebee and the Wreckers for it. There was even talk up at the north pole of adding a biosphere of some kind so their human friends could visit. All things considered, it could be good for the economy, but I didn't like it. Humans are just too small to keep track of. Suppose you're out on a case and one gets underfoot. _Squish_. Light's out, show's over. Humans make me nervous, same as sparklings. They're too fragile.

Nightbeat took scans of the body and the scene of the crime, and asked me whether he ought to prepare a statement. I almost told him not to bother. Nobody cares in Slaughter City. Nobody but us.

There were probably one hundred and one reasons somebody could've had to kill an ex-Decepticon. Personal history, mugging gone wrong, general prejudice, mistaken identity, or just plain old-fashioned revenge. The damage to the body was a little too extensive for me to lean towards robbery or mistaken identity: this had been personal.

"Alright Nightbeat, get this poor spark out of the alley before he starts to rust. I'll have the mechs at the lab analyze him to see if the perpetrator left any imprints on the nanites in the wounds, and you go make a report to the Commissioner." I slipped a cy-gar out of my subspace and waved it vaguely at our "friend".

"Here's to you, buddy," I said, "At least _we'll _remember you." I lit the cy-gar and dropped it where his helm would've been. I don't smoke: never did. I just carry them around out of habit.

"Yeah, I don't know if that'll do any good."

When I asked the rookie what he meant, he just shrugged, but I knew that look. Nightbeat had found something, a clue of some kind, and it was making him nervous. Now, sometimes Nightbeat gets nervous because he's just a kid when it comes down to it. One of the first sparks out of the well after Optimus brought the Allspark back—Primus rest his giant, loving, idiotic spark—and kicked out of the academy early. We were shorthanded on law enforcement. I guess Magnus thought he could handle it...or he thought _I _could handle it. Still, I know that not a lot rattles Nightbeat, so when he gets nervous, that's a good enough reason to start reaching for a gun.

"Alright," I said, "What is it?"

Nightbeat dragged two servos through the slime on the walls of the hab suites around us. That's one thing I can appreciate about the rookie: he's not afraid to get his hands dirty. I mean that literally, y'know, not figuratively. We're trying to uphold justice here, not subvert it. What do you take me for, a sentinel guard?

"Look at this." He holds the servos up in my face. "You got your run-of-the-mill grime, your garden variety heating-coil discharge, and energon."

"So?" I didn't think much of it at first. That made up most of the sludge lining the walls and the streets of Slaughter City these days, even after the rejuvenation of Cybertron.

"So this _isn't _the victim's _blood_!"

Well that got my attention. "Okay, Nightbeat. I'll bite."

I could tell even before he opened his mouth that I wasn't going to like what I was about to hear. It's like an extra sense I've got. My doorwings twitch when bad news is coming. They darn near used to flap during the War.

"This is high-grade, Prowl. The expensive stuff."

Oh scrap. I knew where he was going with this.

"So?" I pretended I didn't know what he was about to say as I helped load the dead 'Con's body into Ambulon. Poor mech had been waiting for Nightbeat and I to finish up for a while now, so I figured I ought to at least give him a hand.

"So who in this city can actually _afford _high-grade?"

The fact that my rookie had come to the same conclusion as I had didn't unnerve me. I don't get "unnerved". If anything, it served to focus my attention on the fact that my case had just gotten a lot harder.

"Ease up there, hotshot," I warned him, "I know what you're thinking. You'd better have proof before you start hunting." I have to play the uptight one sometimes, especially in a town where _nobody cares_. I knew that Nightbeat was probably correct in his suspicions, but if we wanted to turn Slaughter City around, we had to hold ourselves to a higher standard than anyone else when it came to obeying the law. As an Autobot of my rank, I had no business encouraging behavior that was going to stray into vigilante territory.

All the same, this had Chromatron's stink all over it.

He started out a protest artist during the reign of Sentinel. If I'm honest with myself, there's a part of my processor—set aside for the emotions and the prejudices I can't show the rest of the world—that wonders if the two were connected in any way. It's probably because I just don't like the smarmy sculptor. For a while, it seemed like he had died in the first Decepticon bombings, but Chromatron excels at making backup plans. I don't know where he hid for most of the War, but once the call went out declaring that it was all over, he came waltzing back to Cybertron with a fortune he'd amassed Primus knows how and set up shop in Slaughter City.

He's never made any secret of his hatred for anyone even slightly affiliated with the Decepticons. I wouldn't put it past him to gun down a Forged on the street in cold energon. In fact, I know that he has at least twice, but he's got enough influence in this rotted sinkhole of a town that the militia can't touch him. Still, the savagery of this particular attack made me think that somebody else was involved. Chromatron would never risk incriminating himself by tearing a mech apart like this: he would've known that the nanites in the energon stream would retain an impression of the electromagnetic field of the killer. He wouldn't dirty his hands like that on an ex-Con, not unless he had a really good reason.

That's why I was so adamant that Nightbeat find proof before going after Chromatron.

Alright, that's only half the reason.

Chromatron is a lot more dangerous than he looks, and the entire police force knows it. He could walk into the town hall, shoot the mayor, and walk out again and we wouldn't be able to do anything. That's how much pull he has in Slaughter City right now. I knew Nightbeat would be tempted to chase him down, try to intimidate him into giving something away, but without proof or even solid suspicion, it could get dangerous quickly. I don't want to lose another partner, especially not a junior partner.

"We're not going to jump to any conclusions, Nightbeat. Go back to HQ and file that report with the Commissioner," I repeated, "Once we ID our mech, we can start figuring out why someone would want to kill him." It was odd, knowing that I was going to be hunting down a Decepticon-killer who might have been an Autobot. In just a few years, I'd gone from shooting down Decepticons just to survive to trying to secure justice for them.

I think that's why the humans depict Justice as a figure wearing a blindfold. It is impartial.

That's when it started raining, which is where we started.

"Prowl, you _know _nobody else in Slaughter City can afford high-grade!" Nightbeat protested, "Who else could it be?"

"You're still a rookie, so I'm going to let that incredible lapse in logic slide this time," I was feeling generous, despite being in a rotten mood. "There are procedures to follow in a case, and we're going to follow them. The last thing we need is for an ex-Con or a NAIL lodging a complaint against one of us. Understand?"

His reply was sullen. "Understood, sir." He looked like someone had just told him he'd contracted Cosmic Rust. I knew how he felt. When you're young, you feel like you can change the universe single-handedly. Politics, corruption, injustice, all the things we were supposed to have left behind after the War, Nightbeat doesn't understand them. His generation never knew the caste system, the lack of justice that most of us grew up with. It rankles him more than it does me.

Me? I'm used to it by now. I was here when the Quintessons were ruling, remember? Doesn't mean I never do anything about it though.

I knew I was going to regret what I was about to do, but I would've regretted _not _doing anything just as much.

As we transformed and rolled back towards the "better" part of town, I said to the rookie, "Look. You didn't hear this from me, or _anyone else_, but in the ruins of the old temple on the edge of the badlands, there's a beacon. Shine it towards Kaon once, then the city twice, and someone will come."

"Who?" He sounded suspicious, and rightly so. Attracting undue attention is generally a bad idea in Slaughter City.

"Someone who will help you. I'm not allowed to tell you any more than that," I said sharply. Even in vehicle mode, I could tell that Nightbeat wasn't sure whether or not to believe me. But I've never steered him wrong, and he knew it. He would go to the old temple as soon as he was off the clock.

We parted ways: he went to report to Commissioner Wheelarch and I went with Ambulon to examine our dead Decepticon and see if we could retrieve any physical evidence.

I knew I couldn't stay in the labs long, especially with Nightbeat headed for the temple that night.

I looked out the window as the autopsy began that evening, and saw the familiar beam in the shape of the wolf's head, crimson against the smog of the city.

It was time.

I would have to become _him _again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello all, I'm back with the second half of "Sculptor's Gambit".**

**Yes, there is supposed to be a slightly "Batman" feel to it, you're right.**

* * *

_Personal Files, Message 42.4_

I left Ambulon with the body. He'd be cataloging the damage before he id'd the victim anyway, giving me time to slip out and head for the edge of town. I didn't need anyone seeing me leave, especially not what passes for journalists around here.

The planet goes to scrap, gets revived, and who trickles back in first? That stupid _Around Cybertron _news crew. Anything they put on the air is liable to be about as factually sturdy as a one-legged gestalt. Nosy as they are, I didn't want to run into any of them on the way to the old temple.

Why was I going to the old temple anyway? I asked myself over and over, but couldn't come up with an answer that didn't sound like Jazz talking in my head.

Primus, I miss that guy.

With Jazz up welcoming the refugees at Iacon with Magnus and co., there's nobody to keep me sane in this madhouse.

There's...how do I put this...a side to me nobody really knows about.

There's a reason for that. I'm _Prowl_, the stiff, the lawman, the "goody-two-pedes", I've heard 'em all. I have a reputation, among my own faction and others, for sticking to the rules and getting the job done. I do what I have to do and there are lines that I do not cross unless we are at war. Well the War has been over for a while now, and there are some lines that are getting blurry.

That's why there's a side to myself that I can't tell anyone about.

Not even Jazz, my _best friend_, knows, and that kills me inside.

There's a series of tunnels under Slaughter City that nobody remembers. Or it could just be that nobody cares. Apathy is a pandemic around here, if not outright corruption. Winning the War didn't magically solve everyone's problems you know. Some of those problems were on our side to begin with.

I dropped underground and off the main radars—took a page from a human I met once on Earth and lined the walls with lead to throw off the more persistent surveillance drones. It's a mess down here, old war debris and waste-fuel leakage, but if you know where to look you can get just about anywhere from here.

It only took me about three Earth-minutes to get across town and under the old Patterner temple. It's about as old as the Age of Origins, and frankly I'm surprised the shifting of plates during the planetary healing didn't completely destroy that old wreck. Then again, the old Patterner carvings are still all over the planet—you can see them from space—so I guess the place Azimuth's followers built for her wasn't going to easily vanish either.

I don't agree with much of what Patterners believe, specifically their claim of an impersonal, non-spiritual cosmology and beginning of our race—at least, that's how Perceptor keeps trying to explain it to me. I suppose all those cycles stuck, adrift with Jazz, have worn the edges off my cynicism so now I'd have to say go look down the Well of Allsparks. Go on, climb down there and tell me that the spark you'll meet is impersonal.

Well, whatever the Patterners believed, I have to admit I'm grateful for the ruin they left behind. It's perfect for my purposes: dark, secluded.

I sound crazy don't I? A "right proper psycho in the works", I think Jetfire called me once.

This is why I'm glad nobody actually reads these reports. Only mech who ever paid attention to them was Optimus Prime, so...yeah, nobody's going to read this.

Parked in the corner of the temple, hidden by a false wall, there's a 2014 black and white Chevy Impala. Law Enforcement vehicle. Yeah, it's a human car. It's also my vehicle mode. There's a reason I keep it here.

Next to the car is a data readout with scanning specs for a different alt mode. I could hear Nightbeat stumbling around the portico of the temple, still shining that beacon around. I didn't have a lot of time, so I didn't bother with a redeco like I usually do. I just scanned the data readout and modulated my voice chip to fit the new shape.

Going from bipedal mode to a beast-like form and back to a vehicle form is not energon-efficient, to say the least. That's why I tried to limit these excursions to times when I knew that a badge wasn't going to be enough. The other alt-mode always helped before, though.

There's just something about a massive metal leopard that some people find unsettling.

"You're a long way from home, youngling."

I crept up behind Nightbeat and perched on a broken-down bust of Azimuth, like Poe's Raven.

Er...Earth reference, I'll explain later.

Nightbeat didn't recognize my voice—not that he would have been able to. It's a secondary vocoder chip that I had installed by a very good medic, right under the layer of circuits that holds the primary one in place. The medic isn't the type to break patient confidentiality, even if he is a little bit of a diva. Knock Out won't tell anyone about the various..._modifications..._that I've gained since I started working in Slaughter City.

The rookie stared up at me, one fist already collapsed back into a standard-issue neutron assault rifle.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

I hopped down from the statue with a grace that I can only dream about as Prowl. But I wasn't Prowl that night. I was _him_.

"I am called the Nightprowler," I said. "Why did you set off the beacon?" As if I hadn't been the very one to send him here.

"We—that is, my senior partner and I—work with the Slaughter City police department. What little of it there is, at least. Um...there's been a murder, and I was told you might be able to help me."

"Shouldn't you be going to your department for that?" I asked roughly. Nightbeat shook his head and scowled.

"The vic was a green and black Decepticon flyer, about 50 vorns old."

"Give me the details," I growled, "And I'll see what I can do to help."

Nightbeat shifted back a step, obviously not ready to trust me. Good. It seemed his time up north in the Academy was good for something after all.

"Uh...his head was missing. Completely gone. Abrasions on the hands and forearms are consistent with a violent struggle before death and his wings were pretty well stomped into the ground. We'll know more after the autopsy."

I retracted my earlier opinion. It was clear that I was going to have to sit down with the rookie and talk about what details were and were not appropriate to share with mechs outside the force. I circled him for a minute and thought more about the case. As luck would have it, that was right when Ambulon finished the autopsy and sent the data packet to me remotely.

**-Prowl, I've finished the reports. Cause of death was not actually the beheading. His body survived for a few breems afterwards before succumbing to massive spark trauma, triggered by the injuries to the wings and the lack of a processor to direct the nanites.- **

I shifted to "Nightprowler's" bipedal form, a dark gold base metal with the grey and the black overtop. In basic frame, I still looked like Prowl, so I had to rely on the secondary voice chip and an entirely different set of body language to pull off the disguise. It's not an easy thing to do: not counting Shifters and their cousins the Mutacons, not many Cybertronians or Near-Cybertronians can do it. I've spent years training myself to pick up and use different personas when I needed to. It's just a matter of Processor Over Matter, really.

**-Thank you, Ambulon. Any word on our victim's identity?-**

Aloud, I asked, "So why do you want my help, rookie?"

I hadn't gotten to hear how his report to Wheelarch had gone. I had really sort of hoped that he hadn't brought up his suspicions about Chromatron to the commissioner, since I knew he wasn't going to do anything about it, but I knew in my spark that the kid didn't quite have that level of tact.

The long and short of it is that Commissioner Wheelarch had almost stated outright that since it was a Decepticon, it wasn't worth the time or effort to pursue the case.

"It was probably an in-faction matter," he'd apparently said, "They got a way of settling internal problems."

Luckily, Nightbeat was as unconvinced as I was. I think I'm going to have to introduce the kid to Jazz, see what he thinks about me taking on an apprentice. Well, according to the kid, he'd brought up his suspicions about Chromatron—just as I'd thought he would—and the commissioner shut the conversation down without even hearing another word.

In my experience, if Wheelarch tries to end an investigation, it's because he's scared. There are only two things that Wheelarch is afraid of: his nightmares from the War, and losing his job. Someone with the right social and political connections in Slaughter City could very easily see Wheelarch replaced with someone more friendly to their agendas, and he knows it.

That was one more strike against Chromatron, but I needed more evidence. There was a message waiting on my private comm line from Ambulon, but I couldn't answer it at the moment.

"So you think the sculptor was responsible for the murder?" I asked dryly. "You don't think that sounds far-fetched at all?"

Nightbeat shook his helm and adjusted his night-vision visor. "No sir, Nightprowler. I don't. There are whole memory sticks filled with evidence that the mech is into shady dealings, locked away where only the Commissioner and the higher ranks can access them. Not even Prowl can open them—which is in and of itself _highly _suspect—I know I'm being premature in all this, Nightprowler, but this is the third one that Wheelarch shut down. The other two had much more evidence against Chromatron and his hired thugs. Even a confession out of one of them! I...I just want to make sure I know what I'm dealing with. I was told you could help."

"How good are you at keeping quiet?"

"Uh...I mean, pretty good, I guess?" he seemed a little startled.

"Good. Follow me and don't ask any questions."

I dropped back into Nightprowler's alt-mode and padded out of the temple. If ever I have to go on the run, or take up the life of an assassin for some reason, this is the alt-mode I'd choose. No engine sounds, it's almost completely silent. I led Nightbeat through a maze of service lifts and grungy alleys until we were hopping across rooftops. Down in The Pens of Slaughter City, the buildings tend to be small and square, like human cities, rather than the high domes and spires favored up north.

I didn't tell Nightbeat, but we had more evidence against Chromatron than he thought. It looked like the sculptor was getting overconfident in his immunity. I had opened the message from Ambulon while we crossed the city, and I admit the answer set me back a few steps.

**-Prowl, I've got a positive ID on our mech. His unique data signature marks him as a fella called "Boltcaster", sometimes known as "The Bazali Butcher". Here's the weird thing: - **

And that was when the case got bigger.

**-He wasn't a Decepticon.- **the message said, **-That insignia on his shoulder? Not the real thing. It's a good recreation, very well moulded, but fake all the same. It took some doing, but I managed to pry it off mostly in one piece. You're never going to guess whose manufacturing marks are on it.-**

Twenty breems later, we were standing outside a green transparisteel high-rise: Chromatron's place. I knew he was too professional to have any traces of the victim's energon lying around, but I also knew that he was a rich, sneaky coward at spark: an opportunist. He'd kill if he thought he could get away with it, but he usually had others do it for him because he wasn't the type who knew how to cover up a murder. He was powerful enough that he didn't _have _to be. Like I've said: he has a lot of pull in Slaughter City.

"I'll handle Chromatron," I said to the rookie, "You watch my back. If you see evidence of any kind, record it, don't touch it."

He looked impressed. "You do this kind of thing often, Nightprowler?" he asked.

"More often than I did before the War," I answered.

We walked right in, bold as you please, past a particularly hideous modern art sculpture that was supposed to depict Megatron's demise.

I wonder what Chromatron would think if he knew Megatron was still alive? Oh, that information is highly classified, of course. In fact, only Autobot High Command actually knows about it, along with a handful of humans back on Earth that Bumblebee _insisted _be kept informed.

I transformed and casually kicked over a smaller statue of a weeping femme—or possibly a giraffe. I said Chromatron was rich, but I never said it was because of his talent at statues—and waited for the alarms to go off. Prowl plays by the rules. Nightprowler doesn't. It didn't take long for Chromatron and the guards to show up.

"Hey! That was a collectible!" The sculptor had come a long way since his "starving artist" days, that was for certain. He now sported a shimmering gold finish that even Knock Out would be jealous of: a status symbol, and one that had recently come out of a decontamination bath, unless I was mistaken.

"_Was _being the operative word," I drawled. "I'll buy the piece of scrap if it means that much to you, but for a price."

"Hold on a minute," Chromatron raised a hand over his helm and pushed his way past his guards. "What do you mean _for a price_? You're _buying _it!"

I snorted. "Buddy, for junk like this, you should be paying customers to take it off your hands. Not the other way around."

As predicted, he was furious, and launched into a long tirade about not being appreciated in his time. I couldn't have been less interested, but it gave Nightbeat a chance to slip out of the room. I assumed he'd gotten a lead on something.

I yawned, showcasing a pair of sharp fangs—which hurt like the Pit coming in and out every time I reformat—and moved ever-so-slightly, so that Chromatron could see the wolf's head badge on my shoulder.

He froze, and I noticed something akin to panic flash through his optics. Oh, it was gone before his goons could catch it, but I never miss _anything_.

Did I mention that Nightprowler has a bit of a reputation around the underbelly of Slaughter City? It's not a nice reputation. I'm not a nice mech.

"_You_!" he gulped, "I know who you are!"

"Interesting that your reaction would be _fear_," I leaned forward slightly, keeping an optic on his two "friends". "In the T8 Zone, folks are usually _glad _to see me. Which makes me wonder..."

I slipped into beast-mode and walked in circles around the three, letting a low growl echo as I spoke.

Primus help me, but I've become very good at intimidation.

"What have _you _been up to lately, hmm?" I leapt up onto the receptionist's desk and glared at the three.

"One might almost think you looked _guilty_."

That got the reaction I was looking for. One of the two guards—a generic, possibly even a monoformer—squeaked in fright.

"You can't prove anything!"

"Shut _up_!" Chromatron smacked him, hard, sending him back towards a small refreshment stand. He toppled over it and it cracked, sending its liquid energon contents all over the floor. I padded over and swept my tail through the glowing blue, then sniffed it.

"High grade. Very expensive, this."

"Well, despite your opinions on my "junk", I actually run quite a lucrative business!" Chromatron tried to sound tough, but I could hear a slight static buzz beginning to overlay his tones. He was scared. I could use that.

"Hm." I made a non-committal sound and transformed again. "You know, you're the only mech in Slaughter City who can afford this stuff? I hear you have to have it imported, since no one here sells it." I tilted my helm to the side and gave off another fanged smile. "Makes it look pretty bad when the stuff turns up at a murder scene, don't you think?"

"Murder? Dear me, that sounds simply dreadful. And what poor Spark has found his way to the afterlife?"

Scrap. The smug scraplet knew what I was talking about, that was for sure, but he'd regained his confidence all of a sudden. On the one hand, he was probably so sure of himself that he would give away key info. On the other, he knew I probably couldn't touch him.

"The initial police report stated that it was a middle-aged Decepticon flyer," I said calmly, watching his expression. "Decaptitated, wings stomped to pieces...a terrible thing, really."

Chromatron tsk'd genially. "Funny, isn't it, how many hate crimes you still have after the War?" he asked.

_Bingo_. That was what I was looking for. It wasn't at all what I was expecting, but it was definitely what I needed.

Chromatron was no factionist, but given his outstanding hatred of Decepticons, there was no way in the Pit he would ever have referred to one being killed as a hate crime. Unless he wanted us to think it was a hate crime. I had no idea what the motive behind killing Boltcaster was, but now that I knew Chromatron was hiding something, I was prepared to drop a fact or two to spook him.

"Funny thing, that," I said coolly, "He wasn't a Decepticon. Turns out someone planted the badge on him. Isn't that odd?"

The two guards shifted position. The one who had squealed earlier was trembling under his armor, I could see it. Chromatron kept his composure admirably and poured himself a cube of energon out of the high-grade that hadn't spilled.

"Now now, lad. Careful!" he chided jovially, "It almost sounds as if you're accusing someone!"

I smiled back.

"The Decepticon insignia was a forgery made by your company. Why did you plant it? Don't bother lying, I can always find the answer _other ways_."

His optics turned cold as ice and I knew I had my mech. That's when Nightbeat rang my comm.

Not Nightprowler's comm. _Prowl's_ comm.

**-Prowl? Prowl it's me. I...uh...I did pretty much ****_exactly _****what you told me not to do. I'm at Chromatron's, and it's worse than we thought. How quick can you get a squad down here? And a couple of medics?-**

I couldn't tell him the truth, or he'd know for sure. I sent out an APB to any Enforcers I knew weren't cowards or on Chromatron's payroll. That made a total of about six, if you're wondering.

"I think you've outstayed your welcome, Mr. Nightprowler," Chromatron sneered, "Lads, why don't you show the Cat Crusader out?"

"Neither of you move," I growled. The downed one did as he was told, hands on his helm.

"He said he was just a 'Con! Just a 'Con!" he blubbered, "I didn't know I was murderin' nobody!"

Chromatron made disgusted sigh and before I could move, put a blaster bolt through the poor mech's processor.

"It's _so _hard to find good help these days." he sniffed.

"The Enforcers are already on their way here, Chromatron," I rasped, and I drew both my null-rays in case he decided to play rough. "I don't see how you're going to explain this one."

"Easy," Chromatron yawned. "The infamous vigilante Nightprowler broke into my home intent on killing me. My poor bodyguard did his job and lost his spark in the line of duty. The security footage will back me up. Nobody will even question the matter of the Star Seeker."

Despite my considerable danger, I couldn't stop a triumphant smirk. "I never said anything about Star Seekers."

"You didn't? Hm. Well that's inconvenient. Deadbolt, would you mind killing him please? I'm getting a splitting helm-ache."

I dodged and dropped down the open shaft of a service lift, just as sirens outside broadcast the arrival of my forces. I must say I wasn't expecting to find a dungeon under the main level. Or Nightbeat.

"Nightprowler." He looked pale. Sick, even. And I could understand why.

The place was lit with a poisonous, greenish light. There were six dead Star Seekers—identifiable only by their unique faction symbol at this point—hanging from cages around the room, surrounded by various instruments of torture that I did not wish to spend time contemplating. Nightbeat stood beside a flat shelf that was serving as a berth of some kind. On it was a half-dissected femme, dark blue but fading to gray.

"P-please!" she gasped, "I already t-t-t-told him, we were just the crew! I don't know w-w-where Thundertron stowed his ship! I hadn't-t-t even j-j-joined when C-c-c-chromatron was being held ab-b-b-oard!"

Her optics were flickering, and her slurred, stuttering vocoder was evidence of severe malnutrition. She had been starved as well as tortured. Chromatron was officially one sick scraplet.

"Shh, shh, it's okay. Nobody's gonna hurt you, miss," Nighbeat held her hand. "Can you tell me your designation?"

As more of her chassis went gunmetal, coolant tears streaked her faceplate. "Astraea," she gulped weakly, "I'm Astraea. I d-d-don't wanna d-die!"

There wasn't much that was going to stop that at this point, but I didn't want to tell her that. Neither did the rookie.

"Stay with her, kid," I whispered, "I need to tell the Enforcers where to look."

I slipped out and used a small, personalized Warp Point manipulator to send me back to the temple, where I re-scanned the police car and became Prowl again. It was the work of a moment to warp back to the tower, though the manipulator would take days to recharge. I hurried in to find Chromatron smirking while he and his remaining goon were held at gunpoint.

"Good work, mechs and femmes," I snapped. "I just got an anonymous tip: check the basement."

"Check it and do what?" Chromatron taunted, "The charges will never stick. All I have to do is say they were Decepticons who tried to rob me. Even if you manage to lock me up, I'll be back out in six cycles, maximum."

I didn't dignify the scum with an answer.

While Chromatron and Deadbolt were arrested for false imprisonment and several counts of first-degree murder, I headed down to check on Nightbeat and Astraea.

She was dead, the last of the color fading from her faceplate, and my rookie sat hunched over next to the berth, ill.

"Nightbeat," I said softly. He looked up with tears in his optics and I remembered for the first time in days just how young he really was.

"She was so scared." was all he said.

"Come on, kid, let's get out of here." I helped him to his feet. "Ambulon needs this place cleared so he can catalog evidence."

He didn't say much for the next few hours.

_We stood on the rooftops, watching the sun rise over Slaughter City. Maybe it didn't look any better during the day, but it was nonetheless a welcome sight for a weary old soldier and a kid getting his first real taste of darkness._

"_Prowl," he says, looking sideways at me, "What we saw last night...do you think it's happening all over?"_

"_I don't know."_

_He looks away, and I know he's thinking about that Star Seeker femme again. Poor kid. Strip away the faction symbols and the optic color and they're all the same: miles of confidence and a pathological fear of death. At least Nightbeat was able to give her some comfort in her final moments._

"_We know what happened, Prowl. We even got a confession out of that rust-eaten parasite! Why isn't Wheelarch doing anything?!"_

_I shake my head and toss a cy-gar over the roof in remembrance._

"_Because they were 'Cons. Nobody cares."_

"_I know somebody who might."_

_He looks out at the old temple at the edge of the badlands, grinning like he's got a secret._

_I throw an arm around the rookie's shoulders and stare out at the sun. _

"_Yeah, us."_

_This is the city._

_Slaughter City._

_I live here._

_If you come here looking for trouble, I can guarantee you're going to find it._

_And then I'll find you._


End file.
